Developing The Flexible Leader HQ.pub - Right Management

BY RICK LEPSINGER—MANAGING VICE PRESIDENT, ORGANIZATIONAL CONSULTING
Rick’s new book, Flexible
Leadership: Creating Value by
Balancing Multiple Challenges
and Choices , in collaboration
with co-author Dr. Gary Yukl, is
scheduled to be published by
Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer in April
2004.
The book presents an integrated
model of leadership—a coherent,
consistent framework that
provides a practical guide that
leaders at all levels can use to enhance
individual and
organizational effectiveness.
The following excerpts from the
book help to illustrate this theme.
Importance of Flexible,
Adaptive Leadership
Talking about leadership in terms
of what effective leaders do rather
than what they are is a good
beginning, but it not enough. If
the assumption that leaders are
born rather than made, and the
assumption that leadership is
provided only by those at the top,
are dangerous, so is the
assumption that certain leadership
behaviors are equally appropriate
and effective in all situations.
Common sense alone should tell
us that what works in one situation
may be less effective in a different
situation, or when circumstances
change.
Flexible Leadership
World Headquarters
1818 Market Street, Thirty-third Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19103
215.988.1588 or 800.237.4448
www.right.com
For that reason, leaders at all
levels need to develop the ability
to determine just what challenge
to focus on at any given time, and
the best way to respond to it. . .
Even for the same leadership
challenge, the appropriate mix of
leadership behaviors and formal
programs will change as
conditions change.
A major difficulty for leaders is
the need to balance the competing
Right Management
Consultants is the
world’s leading
career transition
and organizational
consulting firm.
and sometimes contradictory
demands of the various
leadership challenges. A leader
who puts too much emphasis on
efficiency and reliability may
make adaptation more difficult to
achieve and vice versa. An
overemphasis on motivating
employees may adversely affect
operational efficiency, especially
related to costs. Flexible
leadership requires skills in
diagnosing the situation,
evaluating the challenges,
balancing competing demands,
and integrating diverse
leadership activities and
programs in a way that is
relevant for meeting the
challenges.
The Three Leadership
Challenges
The effectiveness of an
organization depends on three
performance determinants
identified earlier, which we
have described as distinct
leadership challenges.
Efficiency and reliability
involve using people and
resources to carry out essential
operations more effectively and
in a way that minimizes cost,
and establishing and maintaining
standards of quality for the
production and delivery of
products and services (e.g.,
avoiding unnecessary
delays, errors, quality defects,
or accidents). Adapting to the
external environment involves
responding in appropriate ways
to threats and opportunities
(e.g., changes in technology,
moves of the competition,
changes in customer needs and
expectations), correcting
internal weaknesses, and
leveraging internal strengths.
Human relations and resources
involve ensuring that the
organization has people with
the skills and willingness to do
their jobs effectively.

“Talking about
leadership in terms of
what effective leaders
do rather than what
they are is a good
beginning, but it’s not
enough”
Three Types of Leadership
Activity
The three types of leadership
activity are differentiated by
their primary objective—
efficiency, adaptation, or human
performance. Activities
concerned primarily with
improving efficiency and
reliability include planning how
to use personnel and resources to
conduct operations, clarifying
responsibilities and task
objectives, monitoring
operations and performance, and
taking decisive action to identify
and resolve problems that disrupt
operations.
Activities concerned primarily
with adaptation include
monitoring the external
environment to identify threats
and opportunities, strategic
planning, initiating and leading
change, encouraging innovative
thinking, and facilitating
collective learning. Activities
concerned with human relations
and resources include developing
individual skills and
confidence, providing
recognition for contributions
and achievements, involving
people in decisions that affect
them, empowering people to do
their work better, and providing
the support needed to make the
job satisfying to people.
All three types of leader activity
are necessary for the success of
an organization, but their
degree of importance will vary
depending on which challenge
is most prominent at a given
time. The relevance of each
behavior also depends on other
aspects of the leadership
situation, including the type of
leadership position. For
example, the change-oriented
behaviors are often more
relevant for higher-level leaders
than for lower-level leaders. . .
Formal Programs Affecting
Each Challenge
The leadership activities
provide one important way to
meet the three types of
challenges. In addition, there
are many types of formal programs
that can potentially result
in improved performance for an
organization. Business process
improvement, reengineering,
Six Sigma programs,
downsizing, and outsourcing
are examples of programs used
to improve efficiency or
reliability. Knowledge
management, entrepreneurship,
benchmarking, and market
To learn how Right can help you develop your
leaders of tomorrow, order your free copy of
Right’s Developing Leaders by calling
1-800-720-2354 and reference reply code G43
today or contact your local Right office.
2
research programs are used to
increase innovation,
organizational learning, and
adaptation to the
environment. Quality of
work life programs, employee
development programs,
employee assessment
systems, talent management
systems, and compensation
systems are used to increase
employee skills or
commitment. CEOs and
leaders of major subunits
often have the authority to
implement such programs,
although low-level leaders
seldom have this option.
Like the specific types of
leadership activities, these
formal programs are likely to
have consequences for more
than one type of performance
determinant. Some programs
may improve more than one
performance determinant
simultaneously. For
example, a well- designed
incentive system may
improve reliability,
innovation, and employee
satisfaction simultaneously.
However, some programs
designed to deal with one
challenge have adverse
effects for another challenge.
For example, downsizing
programs may improve
efficiency at the expense of
employee satisfaction and
commitment. Ensuring that
different programs are
mutually compatible is
another challenge facing toplevel
leaders in organizations.